The Starr-O'Connor legacy

Sometimes Republicans do more harm to America than Democrats ever could by themselves.

Kenneth Starr and Sandra Day O'Connor are two prime examples.

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Starr is best known as the independent counsel who investigated Bill Clinton's crimes as president. As such, he set himself up as a foil for Democrats – a kind of pit bull who would stop at nothing to bring Clinton to justice.

The truth? He was either the most incompetent prosecutor in the history of the country or complicit in the cover-up of those crimes. I lean toward the latter judgment.

As WorldNetDaily reported exclusively last month, recordings of Miquel Rodriguez, the assistant U.S. attorney appointed by Starr to investigate Vincent Foster's death, show he doesn't believe the official story of a suicide in the park. They reveal he was threatened to short-circuit the probe and was essentially forced to resign to make way for a cover-up. They indicate there never really was an independent investigation into this mysterious death.

"This whole notion of [Special Counsel Robert Fiske and Starr] doing an honest investigation is laughable," Rodriguez says on the tape.

The accepted verdict, that Vince Foster killed himself at Fort Marcy Park near Washington, was predetermined by a "higher authority" at the start of the investigation, asserts Rodriguez. He also says the White House was notified about the death even before paramedics reached the scene.

"All I know is that things did not happen the way Fiske says that they happened, and the reports don't support what Fiske said," Rodriguez stated. "There is nothing consistent with [Foster] committing that kind of violent act at all."

The recording was produced by Patrick Knowlton – a witness in the case whose court-ordered appendix to Starr's Foster report alleged a cover-up – and his attorney John Clarke.

Starr hired Rodriguez in October 1994 to lead the grand jury investigation into Foster's death, but he resigned the next spring out of frustration.

"I was told what the result was going to be from the get-go," Rodriguez said. "This is all so much nonsense; I knew the result before the investigation began, that's why I left. I don't do investigations to justify a result."

Rodriguez said his supervisor, Mark Touhey, who headed Starr's Washington office at the time, squelched his efforts to issue subpoenas and call witnesses.

Ultimately, Starr let Clinton off the hook on all his crimes – not just the orchestrated cover-up of the death of Vincent Foster.

Meanwhile, O'Connor has been a disaster as the key "swing" on the U.S. Supreme Court – with her latest misjudgment on the Texas sodomy case warranting nothing short of her impeachment. She has no respect for the U.S. Constitution. She fancies herself a lawmaker, not a justice. And that is just how she has handled her long tenure on the court.

Why do I tie these two together? What is the common denominator between Starr and O'Connor?

In 1981, it was, as recounted by Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, " a hurriedly prepared, error-filled memo by a young Justice Department lawyer" that convinced President Reagan to go through with the nomination of O'Connor to the court – despite tremendous opposition from those who believed she was unfit and unworthy of Reagan's support.

That young Justice Department lawyer was Kenneth Starr.

The memo gave O'Connor a clean bill of health on abortion by "using legal gymnastics to explain her Arizona legislative record," wrote Evans and Novak. He wrote that she had "no recollection" of how she voted on a 1970 bill to legalize abortion when, in fact, she was a co-sponsor of the measure that was defeated 6-3 in committee.

Starr misrepresented that O'Connor was something of a friend and associate of the leader of the state's Arizona pro-life leader, Dr. Carolyn Gerster. In fact, Gerster told Evans and Novak: "I had an adversary position with Sandra O'Connor" and called her "one of the most powerful pro-abortionists in the [Arizona] Senate."

That's the real Starr-O'Connor legacy.

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